Basic communication concepts

Case Analysis Paper Option 3

Introduction

Basic communication concepts

Communication is only successful when both the sender and the receiver understand the same information as a result of the communication. The function of communication is to get any message from one person to another clearly and unambiguously. Sometimes the communications become problematic when faced with “dilemma” situations. The communicator may face problems in effectively rendering the thoughts to the receiver and in such cases the situation can be fraught with error, with messages often misinterpreted by the recipient. When this unnoticed, it may lead to tremendous confusion, wasted effort and missed opportunity.

Communication is a social presence and is expressed as the level to which the recipient of communication perceives it as personal interaction with another person. The personal involvement comprises the personal communication, impersonal communication, anonymous communication, etc. In this case analysis project the communication problems in complicated situations are analyzed.

Case – “Managing a Merger”: It is the case in which the manager of a company reflects many communications to bring forth financial prosperity to the company that is experiencing financial crisis and decided to merge with another company. The main aspect that was reflected with this case is that communicator was a

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new person to the merged site and had to tackle the monetary problems faced by a closed down concern. The manager opts a meeting to be the best way to meet people and learn the situation and co-operate to get the crisis settled easily. The manager chose communication in a meeting as the only strategy to enable the employees to co-operate with their responses and predicted responses of other group members. As a result, the manager shows interaction has supported the employees to know the new managers perspectives in solving the financial crisis of the company that has merged recently. With relevant communication effects the manager of the company has compared the prosperity of the concern to depend on the fact that communications through meetings or social gatherings can subsequently rendered meaningful thoughts among the employees in a meeting to get out of the “dilemma” / problem and add their teamwork as a successful emergence to prosperity with the concern. Finally, he says that social gatherings are the best source for effective communications where man being a gregarious starts to discuss and communicate socially. The manager also emphasize on the need for healthy discussions like appreciation, praise, etc with the employees to make them feel interactive in any situation.

The common dilemma that was observed by communications in this case is the conversation that was made by Laurence Brown where he hesitated to explain certain issues in the meeting and the other one was Joe McGinty who bluntly responded the manager “No, thanks” without rendering any reasons for his resignation.

Common issues that was observed with communications of human behavior is focused on the group of people who may be known or unknown to produce a viable thought in an expressive way. The case also reveals the communication conditions that were crossed with the prospect of money (loss / no loss). Communication is the best option for the human resources to fix the essential components more clearly for the execution of the proposed problem especially when faced with the financial / monetary problem.

There are few “dilemmas” that was observed in the case when the concerned person (manager) faces emergency communications. They are Candor versus secrecy, Tentativeness versus confidence, Speculation versus refusal to speculate, Being alarming versus being reassuring, Being human versus being professional, Being apologetic versus being defensive, Decentralization versus centralization, Democracy and individual control versus expert decision-making, Planning for denial and misery versus planning for panic, Erring on the side of caution versus taking chances.

Provide a statement that defines or describes the communication decision / dilemma or problem

In this case, communication rendered by the area manager Lawrence Brown was a communication problem faced by the employees to understand the speech that he delivered in the staff meeting.

He emphasized the history of the concern that will be understood by the employees but certain issues that he delivered had made the employees face a dilemma or bring forth many questions after the meeting. While in his speech he said “The merger was an easy decision but how to implement was tough because we know that one way or the other people were going to lose jobs”. This one issue would have provoked the feeling of the employees guarantee for the job.

Communication behavior in common social dilemma situations

Social dilemmas are circumstances in which members of a group are faced with a clash between maximizing personal interests and maximizing collective interests. Communication among the members of such group has been shown to enhance cooperation by maximizing groups’ interests and it’s assumed that if members are allowed to make a assurance prior to their actual decision, they can speak their intentions and eventually increase the cooperation rate. One of the cases that were analyzed contains several types of pledge conditions that show enhanced cooperation.

Provide a statement for addressing or solving the problem and a rationale for the solutions you present.

If the communicator was good enough he would have emphasized more on the job security for the employees in the concern as their productivity increases the prosperity of the company by all means. This was made evident when the branch manager Peter addresses the meeting. While in his speech he says “My aim is to get everyone working together…….. & we hardly know each other so we will spend little more time in knowing each other. I can’t do it all by myself. Everyone has to do a little bit and if we all work as a team in doing what was required individual results will follow, if we don’t perform as a branch the whole branch will go, and it won’t be one job, it will be everyone’s”. After hearing his speech the employees would have gained confidence for they knew this man is proficient to let them work without any backlogs. Moreover, they will be definitely satisfied for the clear speech delivered and the manager’s idea for the meeting to happen is to ensure the employees job security and socialize the meeting to get to know about one another easily as all or few may be new to the merged concern.

Provide a list of resources (physical monetary human resources) needed for the implementation of the proposed solution to the problem.

The branch manager of the company is the person who is essential to deal with the proposed financial crisis and take up the task with the company that is merged with the other company. The branch manager Peter was not daunted by the task set forth for him. He remembered his dad saying to him, “The things that you can’t control don’t waste time worrying about it, only focus on the things which you can actually change”. This made the branch manager focus on the employees activities and their co-operation would be the target for the prosperity. Eventually Peter feels that he could succeed.

Another resource that serves as an approach to clear the problem are Peter’s reassurance words to Laurence “Don’t worry mate, this is not the first time, I had this kind of thing for the last” where Peter was challengeable and proclaimed his main aim was to get the staff working together within a very short period of time because he was sure that he will know them soon.

Provide a timeline for implementation

The time line he used for his implementation is “very short time”, whereby Peter was confident that he will finish the task as a successful manager. Consequently, after the three month audit in the merged glass company branch Laurence gives a remark to Peter as follows; “Well peter, it’s been over six months and I can’t believe what you have done to this place. You have done it again, the impossible – the branch is doing well for the first time”. After that, Peter pondered within himself that even after 60% of the employees has left the job, he was able to bring his branch as one of the top performing branches in his company.

Provide a statement of the expected benefits or expected impact of the proposed solution.

The conversation between Andrea after her analysis by completing the figures for the month, she said to Peter “Well done, we have improved the margin – only 5% of short of targets this month, still we are in the way to go for a full celebration” implies that Peter has done his level best to improve on the complexity of the downfall with finance in the branch and consequently had contributed enough to make the things work well.

Expected Impact: Period of one months time.

The worker Joe in the case was not happy working in the Glass X firm as he was a long term employee of Krys Klear Glass Company, Peter- the branch manager observed knew that he was a good foreman but he seemed to be dull with his work and sought a redundancy to Auckland Glass X branch from Hamilton branch, when questioned by Peter why he can’t stay up as a good foreman in this branch? Joe gave a blunt remark that he don’t want to be with “No thanks”, and got his transfer.

One month later when Peter attended the area meeting at his Aukland branch he saw Joe who bumped on him happily and expressed his happiness that he enjoys the place because most of the staff members are known to him. He said that only the name was different and that he was very happy working for the concern. But unfortunately he lost the job as the branch didn’t work properly. Peter reflected back that he can come to Hamilton branch but Laurence refused.

Solving the problem overarching communication problems

How much does a relationship between the communication participants affect the communication process?

The effects of time: synchronous vs. asynchronous communication. The effects of distance: the extent to which participants must be in the same location to participate in the communication Interactions between time and distance is a separate dimension but they do interrelate.

If the benefit to productivity is less, then interpersonal interaction is necessary to complete tasks. Certain interactions affects the quality of work in a successful way, therefore recently the organizations tend to gather meetings / social gatherings to discuss the happenings through series of communications among different people. An effective communicator is one who delivers speech with clarity by emphasizing clearly on the cause effect relationship and future goals for better prosperity.

Certain strategies implied by the communicators in case I and case II are as follows;

Intelligence: The collection and analysis of the state of affairs related to the identified problem / prosperity is clearly analyzed for interpretation with the people.

Design: The communicators have a systematic study of the glory / success /problem and create several alternatives and evaluate the outcomes based on the alternative patterns.

Choice: Selection of the preferred alternative is the best choice adopted by the communicators in “dilemma” situations.

Implementation: It is the process of placing the decision into effect by means of effective interaction strategies. Rational decision making, bounded rationality, and satisfying records will help the communicators to effectively deliver their goals in the best way.

Rational process: It is a process in which all the relevant data are collected and analyzed. The entire possible alternatives are created and the decision is made optimal. Rational process is not always proper. It can be irrational, emotional.

Decision processes confinement: This is done by the amount of time available for astuteness and design phases. The amount of information available during intelligence phase is the cognitive processing capacity of the decision maker with his theory bounded with rationality. Making decisions through irrational processes is called ‘Satisficing’ (Decide on and pursue a course of action satisfying the minimum requirements to achieve a goal)

Along with all these, on the other hand the degree of commitment is very much required with the pledge that differentially affects the co-operation rate while working in a group for better prosperity. The results are often interpreted in terms of a two-stage dilemma in which members can coordinate their expectations through communications only when some degree of commitment is obligatory with their pledge.

Problem finding: The process of identifying and formulating problems that should be solved on the platform called meetings / gatherings to thoroughly discuss about the tasks that can be confronted easily especially when working as a team.